Thursday, July 25, 2013

Edward Champion and THE BAT SEGUNDO SHOW

Whereas I used to listen to books on tape while I did my housewifely chores, I recently found something else that's a lot of fun. Maybe you all knew about this long ago.

Ed Champion, host of the Bat Segundo Show has audio interviews via podcast with more than 500 writers, humorists, musicians, film-makers, etc Crime writers Ariel S. Winter, Charlie Huston, Megan Abbott, Laura Lippman, Ian Rankin and Duane Swierczyncki are in the archives along with humorists like Amy Sedaris and Dave Barry, film-makers like Mike Leigh and Sarah Polley, interviewers like Dick Cavett and musicians like Bonnie Tyler. There are also essayists and topics of interest examined.

What makes these comprehensive interviews work so well is that Ed has read the book. And not just a writer's current book but their previous ones. He is able to ask interesting and probing questions and get people to talk about their process, their influences, all of the things that you wished someone would ask. He is able to draw from an encyclopedic knowledge of literature for these interviews.

I especially enjoyed the interview with Laura Lippman done after her most recent book (AND WHEN SHE WAS GOOD), with Claire Messud after THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS, with Stewart O'Nan after LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER and with Aimee Bender after THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF THE LEMON CAKE. But I am still at the beginning of the archives.

If you like hearing writers talk about their books, I highly recommend THE BAT SEGUNDO SHOW.

15 comments:

I'll be listening to THE BAT SEGUNDO SHOW, too. Katie and I just watched the first three episodes of ORPHAN BLACK On Demand. Love it! We'll watch another bunch of episodes tonight. Thanks for the recommendation!

(Sigh. Having already pushed ORPHAN BLACK on my own blog to no apparent response. People still puzzled about how to see BORGEN after about fifteen pointers--no exaggeration, iinm--to the Link TV pages, for those outside of Los Angeles, who can see it on KCET, or San Francisco, who can see it overnights on KRCB, or who have Dish or DirecTV.)

I've tried BAT SEGUNDO in the past, but his manner put me off. He does get some good people on the show, though, no question.

KCET is now having a marathon of the first season of Borgen on their website, so you can catch up on it from the beginning for a limited time. I did find it initially confusing myself, since when you clicked on the Marathon, you weren't really there yet. But now that a few shows are up there, it seems straightforward enough.

He's dumped some of the cutesiness he was engaging in some years back, but in the intro to the Lauren Beukes episode manages to smugly mischaracterize the nature of the hassle with Mike Resnick, if only slightly and in a popular way, and blame Barry Malzberg for the problem as well, over their column in the SFWA BULLETIN (they mentioned that editor/publisher Ray Palmer had hired editor Bea Mahaffey because he thought she was cute, apparently a fact, and that she went on to prove herself as an editor anyway; when another bit of criticism over perceived sexism on the part of the woman editor of the BULLETIN was extended to their observation, Resnick particularly went ballistic, though Barry wasn't about to apologize for making a factual observation about another, rather maverick man's decision and motives in 1950. But when "Segundo" immediately and randomly lives down to my expectations, driven by previous exposure...sigh.

Signing for CONCRETE ANGEL

Patricia (Patti) Abbott

Contact me

at aa2579@wayne.edu

About Me

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 125 stories that have appeared online, in print journals and in various anthologies. She is the author of two ebooks, MONKEY JUSTICE and HOME INVASION and co-editor of DISCOUNT NOIR. She won a Derringer award for her story "My Hero." She lives outside Detroit.

CONCRETE ANGEL

Polis Books, 2015

CONCRETE ANGEL

An atmospheric and eagerly awaited debut novel from acclaimed crime writer Patricia Abbott, set in Philadelphia in the 1970s about a family torn apart by a mother straight out of Mommie Dearest, and her children who are at first victims but soon learn they must fight back to survive. Eve Moran has always wanted “things” and has proven both inventive and tenacious in getting and keeping them. Eve lies, steals, cheats, swindles, and finally commits murder, paying little heed to the cost of her actions on those who love her. Her daughter, Christine, compelled by love, dependency, and circumstance, is caught up in her mother’s deceptions, unwilling to accept the viciousness that runs in her mother's blood. Eve’s powers of seduction are hard to resist for those who come in contact with her toxic allure. It’s only when Christine’s three-year old brother, Ryan, begins to prove useful to her mother, and she sees a pattern repeating itself, that Christine finds the courage and means to bring an end to Eve’s tyranny.